Using sites while playing

Do you use any type of site such as Sharkscope or OPR while playing poker.

If so, or if not, do you consider it cheating?

I use it occasionally (sharkscope) and I don't think its cheating

I use them as well. I do think that one of the sites out there -  Poker Table Ratings, is cheating. Anytime you can grab stats on someone by using scraping software thats unsolicited, thats cheating.

Some poker rooms have tried to ban the site, but they cant just yet.

I've never used those... I didn't even know about them  :-[

So, what's the difference between sharkscope and Poker Table Ratings?

Sharkscope will tell you how much a player has won or lost in tournaments and SNGs. Its a good way to see how good or bad the players are at your table

PTR is a scraping site that goes to all the sites and basically steals hand histories. Since most sites use text files to show hand histories, these are files that can be grabbed using software.

PTR then sells these hand histories for a fairly cheap price, $30 will get about 1 million I believe.

You will now have hand histories on almost every player on the site you purchased. you import these hands into your tracking software and you could now have all the information you need against players you have neevr even played against.

Ill admit that i did buy these hand histories a while ago. It is still something I am not proud of, but I knew most of the players I was playing against were doing the same, so I felt I had no choice if I wanted to continue making money.

Once I uploaded the hands into my database, I immediately had 20 thousand hands on players I had never seen before. This was a huge advantage for me and for anyone who uses it.

Ah, ok, thanks. It much clearer now. Poker Table Ratings is definitely a huge advantage for any player.

Wow, wasn't even aware of these sites. Good to know!